


Flesh, Bone, and Soul

by Endofwave



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Non Consensual Daemon Touching, and also swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-02-07 11:13:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12839979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endofwave/pseuds/Endofwave
Summary: The Rules are different here, in this place the others call "The Nightmare." As time goes on, the survivors and their daemons find out more about the Entity's realm, and the monsters that haunt it, then they would ever like to know.Dead by Daylight but with Daemons.(If you're unfamiliar with HDM Daemons, there's a quick description at the top of the first chapter!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Hello! Sorry for the shitty summary. If you're unfamiliar with HDM Daemons, basically it's an alternate universe where your soul manifests outside your body as an animal, which settles into a form that reflects your adult personality once you reach a certain age. Daemons talk and interact with one another and other humans, but a human and their daemon need to stay close to one another and you are NOT allowed to touch anyone else's daemon- most people write it as the equivalent of sexual assault. There's more detailed explanations elsewhere!)
> 
> Nea and Bayonai find themselves unexpectedly taken into this place the others call "The Nightmare." What bullshit.

Nea and the boy with glasses stare at one another.

She doesn’t know where she is, or how she’s ended up here. Bayonai bristles at her feet, hissing a wordless threat, though Nea has to admit that it’s probably overkill. The tawny bird perched on the boy’s shoulder is hardly a threatening sight against an angry Siamese cat, and its feathers are already ruffled with clear alarm.

Nea’s scared. Scared and on high alert. But the boy looks like he’s seen a ghost. He’s sitting, alone with his daemon, at a campfire surrounded on all sides by dense woods. It’s night, still, but Nea can’t see any smoke from the roaring blaze of the Asylum, or hear the police sirens from the town, which has to still be nearby. They couldn’t have run _that_ far into the woods.

“I- um, you- who-”

The boy speaks up so quietly that at first Nea doesn’t hear him over Bayo’s growls. After a moment of stuttering, his bird daemon presses itself (herself, probably) gently against the side of his neck, and he clears his throat awkwardly.

“Sorry- Who- who are you? How did you, uh, get here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” says Nea, tense and ready to run. “Where the fuck am I?”

“Um, I’m- I’m Dwight,” stammers the boy. “Dwight Fairfield. Um, and this is Zeffie- Zefrita. Um, the others will be back soon, pro- probably. Claudette can probably explain… um, explain better than us.” At that he looks anxious, glancing around at the woods for a moment before looking back at Nea. “Would you, uh, like to sit down?” He waves a hand vaguely at the logs around the fire, but still looks distracted.

Nea hesitates for a second, and Bayo’s fur flattens back down slightly. Though it looks like this guy is probably a couple years older than her, she feels confident that she could take him in a fight. She walks forward and takes a seat.

“Sorry… what did you say your name was?” Dwight asks lamely. His daemon, Zefrita, bobs her head invitingly at Bayo, who settles down guardedly at Nea’s feet.

“...Nea,” she says shortly. “I’m Nea.”

“Bayonai,” says Bayo. “What do you mean, ‘others’?”

“And what are you doing out here?” Looking closer, she can tell that Dwight’s clothes are dirty, not suited at all for a camping trip, and oddly stained in a few spots. “There will be people looking for me,” she adds sharply.

“What? Oh. They won’t find you. Oh, no, no,” says Dwight, hastily correcting himself when Nea leaps up, her heart skipping a beat. “I mean, they won’t find any of us. We’ve been lost a… a long time.”

Nea sits back down, pulse still racing, as he continues. “There’s three others, they’re…. They’re uh… still out, right now. Jake and Dawn probably aren’t far behind. It’s, um, it’s just been us for a while. The three of us. I’m, um, we’ve never had a new person before. I guess the Entity brought you here, too.”

“What the hell is the En-”

Just then, Dwight and Zefrita’s heads turn sharply toward the woods, as though responding to a loud sound, and a second later a slightly taller, dark haired boy trudges out of the treeline. He’s trailed by a weary looking raccoon daemon. 

“Hey, Jake,” says Dwight glumly. “Sorry.”

The other boy grunts as he takes a seat at the campfire. He hasn’t noticed Nea yet. “It’s not your fault, man. That was stupid of me. Of _course_ there’d be a trap there, he had to know we’d come for you.” 

“Are the girls gonna make this one?”

“Doubt it. Dunno where Meg was, but Claudette had almost made it to me when the bastard saw Laef. They still have three to do, too.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay, Dawn?” Asks Zefrita softly. The raccoon, “Dawn”, offers her a reassuring nod before laying herself tiredly across Jake’s lap. That’s when she finally notices their visitor.

“Jake,” she says sharply, and he locks eyes with Nea, too. 

“Who the fuck?” 

“This is Nea,” says Dwight quickly. 

“And Bayonai,” says Zefrita.

“How’d they-”

“Dunno. We’re waiting for Claudette to help explain.”

Well, Nea’s been properly silenced, at least, by this new arrival. She has no idea where to even begin. What the hell is he talking about?

 _He mentioned traps_ , Bayo thinks worriedly. _And someone ‘getting’ them?_

 _Are we in danger, here?_ Wonders Nea.

“Oh,” says Jake belatedly. “Um, Ok. Well, I’m Jake.”

“Dancha, or Dawn,” says the raccoon, to Bayo. He nods curtly.

They wait in silence for a bit, Dwight and Jake staring blankly into the center of the fire with periodic glances up at Nea, who’s still at a loss.

“Oh, fuck me!”

Dwight and Nea jump, but Jake reacts more calmly, turning his head toward the same patch of trees he’d come out of. Storming out of the woods is a frustrated looking blond girl sporting a baseball hat and runners jersey. Nea notices her leather shoulder pad a second before she sees her daemon, some kind of smallish bird of prey, trailing her in the air.

“You okay?” Asks Jake dully, when she throws herself down onto a log with a sharp sigh. Her daemon perches next to her, grumbling incoherently. “C’mon Meg, Skif, it’s over.”

‘Meg’ takes a deep, slow breath. “I’m _fine_. Only I lost that great toolbox. The one I was so excited about? Got one generator out of the damn thing, and like hell is another one going to show up in my bloodweb any time soon-”

While she rants in words that don’t make any sense at all to Nea- bloodweb? Dawn hops logs to sit next to the hawk. “How’d it go? Last we saw, he was after Claudette and Laef.”

The hawk shakes his head irritably. “He got them. We went for a basement rescue, because we figured we were dead anyway, without them. He heard Meg disarm the trap. Doubt they got very far.”

Dawn butts her head gently against the hawk’s side. “We’ll do better next time.” 

“Yeah. Damn shame about the toolbox, though.”

Meg’s gaze finally drifts to Nea. “Wait, who-”

Nea cuts the other girl off. “Nea and Bayo. Bayonai.” She’s not used to using his full name so many times in conversation. “Dunno how we got here, apparently we’re waiting for Claudette to come back so she can explain whatever the hell is going on.”

“Shouldn’t be long,” mutters Meg darkly, and Jake gives her a look. 

“Don’t be like that, maybe she found the- Oh, never mind.”

One last person- at least, Nea _hopes_ it’s the last person- trudges into the camp. There’s a barn owl daemon perched on the dark-skinned girls shoulder pad, and her expression is more like Jake’s than Meg’s: tired and resigned, but not angrily so. 

“Sorry, Claud. We tried,” says Meg apologetically, shifting over on her log for the girl to sit down. The barn owl lands next to the hawk as the girl offers her a weak smile.

“I know. That trial was a bust from the start, huh? Hopefully we do better next time, I’m running low on offerings. Who are you?”

Nea starts at the casual change of focus, but gets out another introduction. The girl who must be Claudette nods sympathetically.

“I’m Claudette, and this is Laefertes, but he goes by Laef.”

“Oh,” says Meg suddenly. “Sorry. I’m Meg, and the goshawk is Skiflit. Skif.” Claudette rolls her eyes, smiling fondly.

“I’m guessing you guys didn’t tell her much?” She looks at Dwight, who rubs his neck sheepishly. Claudette sighs. “Sorry you ended up here with us, but the sooner you know what’s going on, the better.”

Nea and Bayo listen skeptically as Claudette and Laef explain in turns about the Entity, this place they call the Nightmare, and the awful trials they are forced into just about constantly (“Time doesn’t really work here, it’s always night,” explains Laef, “So it’s all kind of approximate.”). It does freak them out a bit when Jake demonstrates the bloodweb, falling into a brief, trancelike state before a first aid kid materializes in embers next to him, and when Dwight and Zefrita step directly into the fire without being burnt, but…

“So you’re telling me this place is Hell?” She raises an eyebrow challengingly. “We just took a walk. Kind of.” They’d lit up the asylum then split. “I know for a fact I’m not dead. You’re telling me if I walk back the way I came, I won’t find-”

“You’ll just end up back here,” Jake tells her. “Tried it a hundred times.”

“We’re split on if this is actually Hell or not,” says Dwight. “I think it is, or something… something like it, but Claudette says that none of us- none of us have done anything bad enough to deserve this place.”

“We haven’t. It’s just some sick, twisted game. We’re just here to amuse the Entity, and bleed and die for its shits and giggles.” Meg leans back on her log, stretching out. Skiflit vigorously nods his agreement. “According to good ol’ Mr. Baker we can’t let it get to our heads, but damn if it isn’t hard sometimes.”

“Who’s Mr. Baker?” Bayo asks warily. Nea strokes his fur. She’s not sure how long she should let them continue this weird campfire story before she gets the heck outta dodge, but there’s nowhere much to go right now. Maybe she’ll see if they’ll let her spend the night, then leave in the morning…

“He was the survivor here before us. Or, one of them,” says Jake. “So I guess it makes sense that we’d get more, sometimes. He left us a journal explaining this awful place. Dunno what happened to him, in the end. Oh, Goddammit.”

The four of them all look skywards, and with a start, Nea notices that tendrils of thick, dark fog are trickling down from the sky. They encircle the campfire, glittering with embers, so dense they almost look solid. A chill runs down her back, and she feels something almost… pulling. Bayo feels it too, and they share an anxious glance.

Dwight buries his face in his hands. “Already? Why already?” Zefrita (Who Nea has learned is a mourning dove) goes still for a moment, expression vacant, and a first aid kit materializes next to them. Almost simultaneously, Jake summons a toolbox, and Dawn clambers onto his shoulders with a grim determination.

Claudette closes her eyes briefly, and a small drawstring pouch appears in Laef’s talons. He tosses it into the fire, watching the flames consume the offering. “I’m not bringing anything,” Claudette tells the others. “I don’t have enough to spare right now. Meg, would you mind bringing another medkit?” There’s no response. “Meg?”

Meg is frowning, her brow screwed up in concentration. Skiflit looks agitated, feathers ruffling up around his neck. “We can’t,” he says, sounding tense. “I don’t feel the Entity. We’re not in this trial.”

Everyone in the camp turns slowly to look at Nea.

“Oh man,” says Jake, looking worried. Dwight’s eyes are wide with alarm, and Claudette is wearing a sympathetic expression. “Well, you’re about to learn by experience. Sorry.”

“Just try and stay calm,” says Dawn quickly, to Bayo. “Don’t try and help with the trial, and whatever you do, _don’t_ get in the killer’s way.”

Bayo’s tail fluffs up, ears laid back. “We don’t want any part of this,” he snaps. “We’re leaving.” Nea finds herself nodding in agreement, and rises wordlessly to walk away from the fire.

Suddenly, the fire is gone, and the people around it have disappeared. Dazed, Nea looks around, trying to figure out where she is _now_. Her vision focuses, and immediately she wishes it hadn’t.

Directly in front of her is a huge, rusted meat hook.

It’s covered in blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aemons:  
> Dwight- Zefrita (Zef or Zeffie) - Mourning Dove - [ZEH-frih-tuh]  
> Meg- Skiflit (Skif) - Northern Goshawk - [SKIHF-liht]  
> Jake- Dancha (Dawn) - Common Raccoon - [DAWN-chuh]  
> Claudette- Laefertes (Laef) - Barn Owl - [LAY-fair-teez]  
> Nea- Bayonai (Bayo) - Siamese Cat - [BUY-oh-nye]
> 
> I don't think this is going to have a very concrete plot. It'll be pretty sequential, though. Mostly I'll be exploring the WAY too much worldbuilding I've done for this AU, partly through new survivor's reactions to ending up at the campfire. I used the daemonpage forum analysis archive to determine all the forms used in this fic.


	2. Chapter 2

“I don’t know how to fix a generator-!”

“Neither does the Entity,” says Jake quickly, hushing Nea with a nervous glance at the surrounding cornfield. “A lot of the stuff here doesn’t really make sense. You just gotta figure out what it wants from you.”

Nea had seen him coming toward her at a half jog before she’d recovered enough to even move. They’d waited silently behind a tree until the sound of a chainsaw-  _ a chainsaw! -  _ had screamed to life in the distance. Jake had grabbed her by the arm, Dawn walking close to Bayo’s side, and they’d crept cautiously out of cover to the broken machinery.

“It’s pretty intuitive,” continues Jake quietly. “Match the wire colors and make the gears turn. When something starts blinking, get ready to hit it as soon as the light stays on. If you’re too fast or slow, it makes a really loud noise. Here, watch me for a sec.” Nea crouches down next to him. The machinery in the generator almost looks like a kids toy version of the real thing, and it does seem pretty easy.

“We think a lot of the stuff we have to do in trials is just supposed to take up time,” Jake agrees, when she says so and starts working next to him. “The longer this stuff takes, the more time the killer has to- Dawn, would you stop him?”

“I just want to help,” protests Bayo, bristling, as Dawn dutifully pins him to the ground next to the generator. “I can hit the lights while Nea-”

“I told you, we can’t touch anything,” says Dawn, ignoring the cat’s halfhearted struggling. “It’s just a Rule. The killer  _ knows _ if we help.”

The chainsaw revs again, and Nea starts, leaping back from the generator with a loud bang and explosion of sparks. Jake stops working abruptly. “Dawn?”

The raccoon daemon clambers onto a rock next to the generator, squinting into the distance. “Keep working,” she says after a second. “He’s after Dwight, I think.” Bayo shakes some of the dirt out of his fur and sits next to Nea, pressing himself miserably against her side.

There’s a final click and the generator shudders to life. 

“Let’s try this way,” says Jake, walking away from the generator with a glance over his shoulder. Nea makes to follow him, but they both freeze when the chainsaw sounds out again, close by. This time, it’s followed by twin screams of pain.

“Shit,” mutters Jake, dropping into a crouch. “Already? Get down,  _ Nea, get down-  _ that’s just the aura, I know it’s weird at first.” 

Nea belatedly scrambles over to his side, eyes wide. There’s a red outline of a person twitching on the ground maybe 20 yards away. The solid shape fluttering frantically around his head must be Zefrita.

“He just got hit by a chainsaw,” She whispers, voice shaking. “He just got hit by a fucking chainsaw, and-” She cuts herself off, feeling sick, and gathers Bayo up in her arms. And he’s not dead. And this is  _ real, _ then.

Jake nods, looking tense and anxious. His gaze is fixed unwaveringly on the aura of the downed survivor. “Yeah. Yeah, he did. Look, unless he gets real lucky he’s going to go on a hook in a couple seconds, but Dwight can do this cool thing with the aura where-”

_ brrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR _ **_RRRRRRRRR_ **

“SHIT!”

And he’s grabbing her arm and they’re running towards a barn and this  _ thing _ with a chainsaw is barreling past them. It slams full force into the generator they’ve just lit up the cornfield with. Nea’s heart is pounding so loudly in her ears that she can barely hear the monster’s dissatisfied roar, but no- that’s not her heartbeat, is it?

“Follow me!” A few steps ahead of her, Jake throws himself through an open window in the side of the decrepit barn. Dawn launches herself through a split second later.

“No shit!” Nea lands on the floor of the barn just behind him. 

_ Brrbrrbrrrrr _ **_RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR_ **

Every instinct is telling her to run after Jake, who’s pelting toward the window on the other side of the barn, but her feet feel frozen to the floor. The chainsaw monster slams into the wall not ten feet from her, and she should really,  _ really _ run. It spots her out of the corner of its eye.

_ “They’re these monsters,” Claudette had explained. “The Entity made them look like people, but without daemons, just to mess with our heads even more. ” _

_ “It’ll really get to you at first,” Meg had said. “It’s like in all those horror movies. They’re just killing machines, but the Entity based them off of what it thinks evil people should be, I guess.” She’d shrugged. “I dunno, none of them really look human to me. The Trapper, maybe. He’s too big, though.” _

_ “It’s more of an uncanny valley thing,” Claudette had agreed. “But yeah.” _

_ “This whole place is made to play tricks on you,” Laef had put in, looking at Nea and Bayo in turns. “You just have to remember that. They’re not human, so don’t let them scare you more than they already should.” _

Nea makes a mental note that she owes Claudette a big one, because hell, the thing turning to face her certainly looks like a half melted, deformed human. Bayo whimpers involuntarily, because the other survivors weren’t lying- the monster doesn’t have a daemon- and it’s hard to choke down her terror even though she’s been warned. When it pauses in it’s advance, staring at Nea with beady, glowing eyes, it’s posture almost suggests confusion. It examines her face for a moment, and then its eyes drop to the cat in her arms. They narrow.

_ It’s not a person, _ she thinks wildly, heart pounding. She clutches Bayo tighter, willing herself to move.  _ It’s not a person, it’s not a person, it’s not a person- _

The monster makes a garbled bellowing sound, and spins its oversized hammer. It’s glaring right at Bayo now. Nea stands there a second longer, then bolts toward the window.

She pays for her hesitation.

“Nea!”

Bayo shrieks and leaps out of her arms when thick, bloodstained hands seize Nea by the shirt mid-lunge and drag her back into the monster’s grasp. Jake vaults back through the window, scrambling after the killer as he slings Nea over his shoulder, walking out of the barn towards a… towards a…

“No-! No no no no- HELP!”

Her thrashing isn’t doing anything, Jake and Dawn can’t keep up with this thing, it’s taking her closer and closer to the- but Bayo could- the Taboo-

Yes! He’s already in front of the killer, weaving erratically in front of him, delaying his progress towards the awful hook, because the monster can’t touch him, even if it’s not a person, it can’t, it wouldn’t-

“BAYO, NO!” Dawn shrieks, stopping dead and forcing Jake to stumble to a halt. “GET OUT OF ITS WAY!” 

Her warning comes a second too late.

\---

...They’re a lot better at trials, now.

“Good luck,” Claudette calls as the fog descends around them. “Come back together!” 

That’s ‘I hope you all survive,’ in survivor speak. Nea gets a quick wave in before she and the others are whisked away to whatever realm this trial will be in. Nea just hopes it isn’t the Asylum this time. It makes her feel guilty, for some reason.

She and Bayo weren’t in the last trial, but before that had been a couple of rough experiences with the Trapper, a close brush with a grabby Nurse, and a few other frustrating failures and botched saves. Nea mentally crosses her fingers for an easy escape.

It’s not the Asylum. And it’s immediately, chillingly clear that it’s not the warehouse, the farm, or the wreckers yard, either. 

It’s somewhere  _ new. _

Bayo curses quietly, and they duck off of the street into the more familiar cover of a group of trees. Nea silently helps him cover some of the lighter parts of his pelt with dirt, and they crouch side by side, peering out.

_ Now  _ she understands her friends’ terror when they’d ended up at the Asylum and met the Nurse for the first time, in Nea’s fourth or fifth trial. It had all still been new to her, but… Better the evil you know.

_ Does this mean there’s a new killer as well? _ Asks Bayo silently, glancing up at her. Nea grimaces.

_ Probably. _

“No sense hiding,” she dares to say out loud, as quietly as she can. There’s no heartbeat in her ears warning her of a killer’s approach, and she thinks she can hear one of her teammates working at a generator nearby. It’s at least safe to go out of cover. Bayo peeks out and nods affirmatively, pointing with his tail in the direction of the sound. 

They can see the generator- there’s no one at it anymore, which isn’t a good sign- when Dwight bolts past them on the left, eyes wide with terror. Nea just has time to see an unfamiliar flash of white in close pursuit before Bayo leaps back reflexively into a bush, and the sharp tug on their bond forces her to hastily follow. 

_ There’s no heartbeat.  _ She processes the information with a bizarre calmness. Dwight doesn’t usually run right at anyone when being chased, since his skill with the aura warns him if he’s leading a killer right to a fellow survivor. Shit, he must really be panicking. 

_ Zeffie was on his shoulder, _ notes Bayo, fur raised along his spine.  _ She always flies when they’re running. Must have been an ambush. _

_ Just what we need _ . Nea sighs, edging over to the generator with a paranoid look over her shoulder. She starts working.  _ An ambush predator _ .

Meg and Skif join her after a minute, and Nea and Bayo fill them in in hushed whispers. Someone gets a generator running on the other side of the street, and everything is quiet for a while. 

Jake goes down right next to them.

“Holy shit,” hisses Meg, crouching with Nea beside their almost finished generator. “You’re right. I didn’t hear  _ anything. _ ” 

“Yeah,” Nea breaths, watching Jake’s aura intently. He’s literally on the other side of the fence, and she can see the new killer now. It’s straight up just some dude in a freaky white mask, holding a fucking steak knife and staring calculatingly down at Jake. It makes it worse that he just looks so  _ human _ , in the way that the other killers don’t, and still the Entity hasn’t given it’s new creation a daemon. 

The killer slings a struggling Jake over his shoulder, then leans back down and makes a grab at Dawn. She shrieks wordlessly. 

Meg, Nea, and their daemons gasp in unified horror. 

“You bastard!” howls Jake, kicking more violently as the killer straightens back up, blessedly empty handed. “Don’t touch her!”

“He tried though, didn’t he,” whispers Meg, pale. “That’s fucked.”

“I’ve never seen one do that,” mutters Skif, head down and wings mantling slightly. “Try and grab like that.”

“Yeah,” says Nea, shaken. They all know and obey that Rule; daemons stay out of the way. The other killers will sometimes kick or grab at a daemon if one panics and tries to block a hooking, but it’s never been unprovoked like that. Not even the Hillbilly has tried that kind of shit. Hell, she’s never seen the Wraith even  _ try _ to take a swipe at an overzealous daemon.

Somehow, they all make it out of the gate in (mostly) one piece. Maybe the Entity is still working out the kinks in its new toy, or maybe it’s because panic-fueled survivors work faster than level-headed ones, but they make it out.

“-And if he hadn’t missed and hit the- hit the generator instead of us, we’d have been done for right off the bat.” Dwight still looks spooked, one hand on Zeffie while the four of them walk through the trees that will take them back to the fire. “God, that one’s going to take some… some getting used to. Better let Claud know.”

“I still can’t  _ believe _ that shit he tried to pull with me,” says Jake fiercely. He’s hasn’t put Dawn down since leaving the trial. Nea’s still holding Bayo, too, though he’d leapt to safety at the very edge of their bond when she’d been brought down. “And what a garbage realm.”

“I thought I’d be happy to see houses again,” grouses Meg. “‘Course the Entity had to go and ruin that, too.” Her voice raises as the flickering of the campfire appears between the trees. “Bad news, Claud, we’ve got a new-”

“We know,” interrupts Laef, head turning to watch their approach. His voice is tense, and Nea is quick to see why.

The blond girl sitting next to Claudette at the fire stands up, then sits back down at a reassuring word from the botanist, who takes a deep breath. “Guys, this is Laurie.”

“My name’s Aurelio,” says the robin on the blond girl’s knee, as the four returning survivors sit nervously around the fire. Meg tries to start introducing herself, but Claudette raises a hand to silence her. 

“Laurie, tell them what you just told me.”

‘Laurie’ looks like she’s hardly old enough to be out of high school, but there’s a grim resolve in her voice as she bluntly says, “Your new killer is my brother. I already know he’s here.” She doesn’t let the weight of that statement sink in before pressing on. “And… and Claudette says that she won’t be here, and good fucking riddance if that’s true, but his daemon is- was- a snowy owl called Emcha.” 

There’s a numb silence that Dwight is the first to break. “The- the killers, they’re- they’re not,” he takes a shaky breath. “They don’t have daemons. They- they never had daemons. They- they-” his voice breaks, shaking too hard to keep talking. Nea finishes his thought.

“They  _ can’t  _ have had daemons,” she gets out, heart pounding. Because, if they had daemons…

“No,” whispers Meg, “because that would make them human. But- but they’re not. We know that. Right?” She looks at Claudette. “Right, Claud?” 

And Claudette, reliable, calm Claudette whose words are always reassuring or absolute truth, just shakes her head.

“I don’t think we know anything at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemons:  
> Dwight- Zefrita (Zef or Zeffie) - Mourning Dove - [ZEH-frih-tuh]  
> Meg- Skiflit (Skif) - Northern Goshawk - [SKIHF-liht]  
> Jake- Dancha (Dawn) - Common Raccoon - [DAWN-chuh]  
> Claudette- Laefertes (Laef) - Barn Owl - [LAY-fair-teez]  
> Nea- Bayonai (Bayo) - Siamese Cat - [BUY-oh-nye]  
> Laurie- Aurelio (Ori) - European Robin - [or-EHL-ee-oh]


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Aaaand the plot loosens. Alas, I've lost the ability to write long segments.)
> 
> The survivors learn some things. Viral videos are referenced, and Jake makes a Very Bad Decision.

“ _Qué boludo,”_ Kesina says dryly. She jumps from Ace’s knee to the top of his shirt, and clambers onto his shoulder to say something into his ear while Jake tries to remember enough of his high school Spanish to figure out what she’s just called him.

Ace says something back, grinning. Jake very much considers pulling out one of the creative Korean insults he’d learned from his uncle, but damn it, he’s better than that. _Stupid ugly frog._

“It’s a bad idea, kid,” says Ace, still smirking slightly. “Let’s put a pin in that one, yeah?”

Dawn bares her teeth slightly. “I wasn’t asking for your permission,” says Jake shortly. “I was asking if anyone has spare flashlights to give me so I can do this and maybe live.”

If anyone would be backing him up it would be Meg and Nea, but they, Claudette, and Bill are in a trial. Laurie obligingly tosses him a flashlight- a nice one, too, by the green aura it’s giving off- but shakes her head, looking doubtful. Dwight pulls two out of his bloodweb and hands them over, both emitting a weaker, yellow glow.

“Sorry,” says Dwight, as Jake adds them to his growing collection. “All I’ve got. I’m bad with flashlights, so I don’t usually grab them.” There’s a brief pause, then he sighs. “You know this is a bad idea, right?” Zefrita preens nervously at the ruffling feathers on her chest. “I mean, I’m not stopping you, but…”

Zeffie glides over to perch on Dawn’s back, nestling into her fur. The raccoon daemon relaxes. “Yeah, we know,” says Jake honestly. “But it’s not like there’s another way to find out. What else am I supposed to do?”

“Survive,” says Laurie shortly, frowning at him. He waits, but she doesn’t offer any more suggestions.

Nea doesn’t have a flashlight for him when she trudges into camp, glowering (“Nurse. Is. Bullshit.”), but she does voice her support for Jake’s plan, and even bickers with Ace for a bit on his behalf.

“Why do you even care, kid?” Ace complains after a few minutes of this. His usually mild accent, some ungodly combination of Argentine, New Yorker, and Nevadan, is more pronounced now that he’s riled up. “You’re going to get us all killed wasting your time.”

Jake shoots him a halfhearted glare, but he knows that Dwight and the others must be wondering the same thing. He _is_ taking all their flashlights, so he probably owes them something, at least.

“You know formology?” Dwight and Laurie nod, but Nea looks confused and Ace doesn’t answer. “It’s like, the study of daemon forms. What they mean and stuff.”

“Like,” he explains, “Bayo settled as a cat, which means Nea is probably friendly but independent. Dawn’s a raccoon, I’m resourceful. Dunno about bullfrogs,” he says, with a side glance at Kesina, “but most amphibian people are generally relaxed.” It of course goes deeper than that, but the gist is easy enough to explain. “You guys probably know about your own forms, though.”

“Formology was literally the only good class we took in college,” says Dawn.

His parents hadn’t been pleased when he’d taken interest in the one class that could only lead to a job in lecturing, but he’d read the textbook cover to cover.

“But yeah,” he says. “I guess I’m just curious, is all. I don’t know everything about every form, but maybe we can learn something if we know what kind of people they used to be.”

\---

Even though the Entity sometimes runs them concurrently, with eight survivors Jake’s not thrown into trials quite as frequently anymore. It would be a welcome blessing, if he weren’t trying to accomplish something that required a trial to work. He’s been taking flashlights into every trial and trying very hard to escape with them still intact, because he hasn’t had a run in with the killer he needs in what feels like _weeks_. 

No one volunteers to help him, but after a particularly brutal trial with the Hillbilly, Jake comes back to see a seething Meg squabbling over the campfire with Nea, who looks mightily pleased with herself.

“We brought you something,” says Bayo to Dawn when they’re close enough. He looks smug, tail flicking back and forth. Nea hands Jake a slab of wood, grinning.

“Cut it right off of one of those boats in the swamp with the saw from my toolbox. The Hag kept chasing us away from it, so it took forever.”

“All trial,” snaps Meg. “The whole trial!”

“Relax, we lived, right?”

“No thanks to-!”

Jake turns the wood over in his hands, examining what’s been given to him. What looks like some kind of sketch has been carved into the wood with what he can only assume is the Hag’s awful claw- nothing else could make gouges this deep and precise. It takes a few rotations of the plank to figure out what he’s looking at, but when Jake realizes what he’s holding all he can do is stare at Nea, open-mouthed. She meets his eyes, looking smug.

“Ace thinks it’s a badger.”

\---

So does Claudette, and Jake is inclined to take her word for it. Turns out none of them have ever seen a badger in real life, but she’s been in more forests than any of them. It still isn’t much, which is frustrating. Jake doesn’t know shit about badgers.

“Territorial?” Suggests Claudette tentatively, when everyone is gathered around the campfire in a happy respite from trials. “We were told to avoid their setts when we did field studies.”

“Nn.” Grunts Bill, drawing everyone’s attention. “Cooperative lil’ beasts. Work with coyotes.” When everyone looks at him expectantly, he shrugs and turns back to the fire. Portril, his tanager daemon, remains silent as always.

“I thought badgers- that’s from the video, right? The really mean ones,” says Dwight.

“Wrong badger, I think,” says Zeffie softly.

Meg grins. “Honey badger don’t care!”

“‘Woah, watch out!’ says that bird,” says Skif, stumbling cinematically on the log he’s perched on.

Claudette and Dwight laugh, and Jake snorts. A quiet chorus of ‘honey badger don’t care!’ ripples around the campfire.

Ace and Bill look uninterested, but Nea and Laurie stare blankly for a few moments before Laurie interrupts hesitantly. “...What?”

“What year are you living in?” Meg teases, still giggling.

“Um, 1980?”

The conversation grinds to a halt.

Nea speaks up first, frowning. “That can’t be right. I haven’t been here for four fucking years.”

“ _What?_ ” Dwight stands up. “It’s- it _was_ \- 2013 when we got taken. Right?” Meg and Claudette, are quick to agree, and Jake nods as well, feeling antsy. He’d never considered that the Entity could fuck with space _and_ time.

“‘15,” corrects Ace, raising an eyebrow. God. Have they been here for two real world years, or is that just the Entity yanking people from whenever it wants? Jake desperately hopes it’s the latter.

“You guys are from the _future_?!”

Meg groans, putting her face in her hands. “Just… whatever,” she mumbles around her hands. “My head hurts thinking about this. Badgers?”

Nea looks like she wants to protest, but glances upwards suddenly and sighs. Half a second later, Jake feels the Entity’s tug himself.

“Who else?” He asks wearily, trying not to zone out too much while Dawn fetches a flashlight from their bloodweb. Nea, Ace, and Claudette raise their hands briefly before going about their own preparations.

“Maybe a luck offering,” murmurs Dawn distractedly, and a heavy chalk pouch forms in Jake’s hand. He tosses it into the fire and, with all the survivors prepared, the fog descends around them.

\---

They’re in the wreckers yard for this trial, but Jake has hardly glanced at his surroundings before a familiar shimmer catches his eye, crossing the field swiftly.

_Yes! Finally!_

Before he can convince himself not to, he runs up to a well-placed pallet and slams it down as loudly as he can.

The shimmering stops, then starts towards him.

_Shit. Okay. We can do this._

“Back up,” hisses Dawn, at his feet. Jake takes a few steps back from the pallet, putting her between him and the Wraith.

The killer smashes the pallet and uncloaks, tilting its- his- head at this survivor that isn’t running. They’ve used distraction tactics before, of course, but there’s no sane reason for Jake to have done what he’s just done. Despite himself, Jake’s legs are itching to run, and he can’t quite make his voice work. The Wraith is still for another second, then advances towards him with his weapon raised.

Dawn throws herself in front of Jake’s feet. The Wraith stumbles backwards, almost tripping over himself to avoid touching her. In the heat of a chase that probably wouldn’t have worked, but now…

“I- I- you, um.” Jake forces himself to focus. He sounds like a flustered Dwight. “Did you- were you-” He’s going to be in so much trouble, talking to a killer like this must be so against the Rules- “P- person?” He finishes lamely.

Dawn saves him. “Did you have a daemon? Like me?” Thank god at least half of him can keep calm under pressure.

The Wraith had stood stock still, staring silently while Jake had stammered out his question. When Dawn speaks, though, he reacts instantly.

Jake is on the ground bleeding before he even registers he’s been hit.

 _Good job, Jake. Nice flashlight work._ He grits his teeth through the pain and reaches out to touch Dawn’s paw for a second before he’s lifted off the ground. _Great plan. Well done._

Once the initial shock and agony of the hook piercing his shoulder has subsided (you get used to it, after a while), Jake realizes that the Wraith is still standing there, just staring. Dawn, curled up miserably under his feet, bristles at the killer.

“Go away,” she snaps, voice tight with pain. It’s impossible to tell where the Wraith’s glowing eyes are looking, but Jake thinks he glances down at her. He stifles a yell of alarm when the monster makes a sudden move towards the hook, closing the distance between them in one long step.

And then Jake is staring at the skull mounted on the Wraith’s bell. The killer is holding it steady at eye level, looking pointedly in another direction.

There’s a tiny figure etched into the skull’s forehead, obviously carved with meticulous attention to detail. It’s delicately painted with some of the materials that Jake has seen smeared on the killer’s bell- soot for the eye, and white paint for the fur.

A generator explodes somewhere off by the shack, and the Wraith slowly lowers the bell, stepping back. He looks at the ground and makes an odd gesture at Jake, a closed fist tracing tight circles on his chest, before ringing the bell and resuming the hunt. Jake watches him go, and tries to remember what he knows about Arctic foxes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemons:  
> Dwight- Zefrita (Zef or Zeffie) - Mourning Dove - [ZEH-frih-tuh]  
> Meg- Skiflit (Skif) - Northern Goshawk - [SKIHF-liht]  
> Jake- Dancha (Dawn) - Common Raccoon - [DAWN-chuh]  
> Claudette- Laefertes (Laef) - Barn Owl - [LAY-fair-teez]  
> Nea- Bayonai (Bayo) - Siamese Cat - [BUY-oh-nye]  
> Laurie- Aurelio (Ori) - European Robin - [or-EHL-ee-oh]  
> Ace- Kesina (Kess) - American Bullfrog - [kehs-EE-nuh)  
> Bill- Portril - Summer Tanager - [POR-trihl]
> 
> (Kesina called Jake a dumbass)
> 
> I feel like I didn't spend enough time on the Jake + Wraith interaction (which was like. My initial idea for this whole chapter) but I'm tired so here is this. I imagine trials move pretty quickly, anyhow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zefrita is quiet, and that's okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plotless chapter? Check.  
> Cheesy ending? Check.  
> Sort of a short filler chapter because I needed one between the last and next. Killer POV next, with some more Exposition (tm) and Angst (tm).

Quentin's come leaps and bounds since first coming here.

Dwight had been at the campfire, with Meg and David, when the kid had come up behind them wielding a broken tree branch, yelling about nightmares and monsters. That's the loudest Dwight's ever seen him- Quentin keeps mostly to himself, holding his lanyard tightly and staring into the flames.

He's nice enough, though. Just quiet. Like Zeffie.

Bill and Portril are quiet, too. He talks sometimes, but she doesn't speak very often at all. Quentin’s daemon Nynta, though, he's never heard say a single word. Dwight's been working with Laurie, trying to get Quentin to come out of his shell, but sometimes it's nice to be able to sit and share a comfortable silence with someone, anyway.

Nowadays, more often than not, there'll be two trials going on at once with so many survivors for the Entity to pick from. That's how it is right now- it's just Dwight, Quentin, Feng, and Meg, back early, hanging around the campfire. They're talking about Jake's 'research.' Well, Meg and Feng are, anyway.

"He's been at it pretty much since Laurie got here," Meg is explaining, showing Feng the page. She has one hand on Skif, who still looks a little frazzled from their brutally unsuccessful trial. Zeffie is snuggled up next to him, Dwight sitting one log over from the girls. "I kinda thought he lost interest after the Trapper... after that thing happened, but he's been back at it recently."

Maeslin scrambles up on top of Feng's head to peer at the journal as she leans over it. Her numbat daemon almost loses his balance when she shakes her head, rolls her eyes, and straightens back up.

Maes takes up a position on Feng's shoulder and glances skeptically at Skif. "That's it? Not very impressive."

"Interesting, though," says Feng.

"Well, it's not easy work," says Skif reasonably. "And only us and Nea and David help out in trials."

The goshawk glances down at Zeffie a little reproachfully at that, so she blinks slowly and leaves his side, fluttering over to land on Dwight's lap. Meg doesn't acknowledge them, and that's fine- they've had this conversation plenty of times before.

He trusts Meg and Jake more than anyone he's ever known (and Claudette, too, but she's neutral in this), but no, he's not going to risk his whole team for some misguided attempt to... do what? Learn more about the monsters that have been killing them, over and over, for what could be  _ years _ now? Figure out their twisted motives?

No. He doesn't want to know.

Dwight's seen the page. Jake had written it in Mr. Baker's journal, but the pages that appear every so often when a new Killer enters the Nightmare still somehow add themselves in before it. There's not much written on it, Maes isn't wrong about that. And, he supposes, it is kind of interesting. It would just be better if the scant information hadn’t cost so much in blood.

_ Who were the killers? _

_ The Shape (Michael Myers) - Snowy owl, Emcha _

_ The Hag - Badger(?) _

_ The Wraith - Arctic Fox _

_ The Trapper (Macmillan?)- Bird? of prey?  _ _ DONT APPROACH _

_ The Doctor (Herman Carter)- Komodo Dragon, Berane _

_ The Nightmare (Freddy Krueger)- no daemon?? _

Interest in learning about the Killers had been waning, especially after Jake had tried to get information from the Trapper and… and failed. Then Meg had found the personnel paperwork on the Doctor's desk.

It had been hard enough for Dwight to keep a handle on things around the campfire, after that. Jake had been more sure than ever that his repeated deaths were worth it for what little information he could gather, and Ace and Laurie had been more vocal than ever about how senseless he was being. With Meg and Nea firmly on Jake's side, and now David too, arguments got heated faster and lasted longer. Dwight had had trouble getting his teammates to work together in trials. He’d had gotten into a fight with Meg that had left the campfire miserable for everyone for the length of six trials before they'd made up. There'd even been some talk of splitting off into different campfires, if the Entity would ‘allow’ it.  _ That  _ had been an absolute nightmare to diffuse…

And then Quentin had come along. And most of the arguing had stopped.

Because Quentin had survived literally every first encounter he had with every Killer.

Dwight had seen two of those trials. One was with the Trapper; Dwight had been bludgeoned to death in that one. The Killer had found them both injured in the shack, but when Quentin had leapt away from the generator, towards the window, the Killer had stopped dead and reacted in a way that Dwight had never anticipated.

See, most people with insect daemons keep them in some kind of capsule in public, just to be safe. Quentin and Nynta are extra paranoid and she's extra tiny, so Dwight's never even seen the little earwig leave Quentin's lanyard.

Maybe the Entity pulled the Trapper from some time before insect lanyards were really a thing. Maybe it'd just never encountered someone with such a tiny settled form before. Maybe it was simply, for once, just unobservant enough to be in the survivors' favor.

Dwight had taken cover behind the generator, freezing up completely. The Trapper was a completely unshakable, brutal pursuit predator. It barely reacted even when a survivor managed to slam a pallet down on its head in a chase, and Dwight had never heard it vocalise except to grunt or growl under its breath when its prey thwarted it, or when its hunt was successful.

So yeah, it had been really jarring to see the Killer reel back in abject disgust and horror, a sharp and all-too human intake of breath echoing from beneath the toothy mask. It had bought Dwight enough time to recover and sprint to the window himself, but not enough for him to get away. Quentin had learned the hard way what a Momento Mori was to witness.

On the contrary, the Shape (the others call him Myers, even Laurie, but Dwight tries not to), hadn't barely at all, only studying Quentin curiously for a few long moments before he finally seemed to notice the earwig in the lanyard. He'd given up the game very quickly, since Nynta's capsule locks from the inside, and there had been other survivors to chase and kill. Quentin had wriggled out of his grasp in the interim.

But the Wraith. Oh, the Wraith. Jake hadn't shut up about the Wraith for what felt like  _ days  _ after Quentin's trial.

The Wraith had pointedly avoided any unusual interactions with the survivors since Jake and Dawn had spoken to it ages ago, but the way it had acted around Quentin had been, apparently,  _ far  _ out of the ordinary.

They, Claudette, and Feng had come back from that trial completely unscathed. Not one of them had been hit. Not one of them had even  _ seen  _ the killer, because the Wraith hadn't uncloaked the entire time.

The newcomer hadn't been experienced enough to recognize it, but Jake had watched him do entire generators with the killer hanging invisibly over his shoulder, growling and gurgling and circling the survivor. Every time Quentin turned around to start a new task, the shimmering form of the Wraith had flinched away, its usually tall form hunched over as though it was in pain.

"I pointed Nynta out when he followed us the the gates," Jake had explained to the campfire, eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "I just pointed at the lanyard and said she was an earwig, and he stopped following us and did another weird motion at me, like before, kind of like-" He had demonstrated, putting a hand up to his mouth and extending it towards the other survivors. "It was hard to tell, since he was still invisible, but it was kind of like that."

No one else had much cared about the Wraith's weird behavior, and Quentin started dying in trials about as much as everyone else after that, but…

The point was that the killers had let him live at first. That was what got the others talking. About how to use their daemons, their knowledge, to their advantage. Thinking about ways to protect each other, as a cohesive team, while the people who wanted to keep taking risks continued their search.

Dwight can't pretend to be  _ happy  _ that his best friends are still willingly throwing themselves into the jaws of the beasts to probably no end. It hurts to watch his friends bleed and die when he's so helpless to do anything about it. There's only so much he can do in trials, even as the leader, but…

"Oh hell," complains Meg, glancing skyward. "I just got back, too."

"No time like the present," Feng mutters, standing and stretching. Dwight rises too, offering Quentin a hand. The other survivor offers him a small smile and takes it, letting Dwight pull him up, his other hand wrapped securely around Nynta's case.

"Anyone got anything good?" Asks Skif.

Dwight opens his mouth to respond, but Zefrita beats him to it.

"We do," she says softly, and delves into their bloodweb. A thrice knotted piece of fabric appears in Dwight's palm, and he ties another into the final corner before tossing it into the campfire as the fog descends around them.

But at least they'll do it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemons:  
> Dwight- Zefrita (Zef or Zeffie) - Mourning Dove - [ZEH-frih-tuh]  
> Meg- Skiflit (Skif) - Northern Goshawk - [SKIHF-liht]  
> Jake- Dancha (Dawn) - Common Raccoon - [DAWN-chuh]  
> Claudette- Laefertes (Laef) - Barn Owl - [LAY-fair-teez]  
> Nea- Bayonai (Bayo) - Siamese Cat - [BUY-oh-nye]  
> Laurie- Aurelio (Ori) - European Robin - [or-EHL-ee-oh]  
> Ace- Kesina (Kess) - American Bullfrog - [kehs-EE-nuh)  
> Bill- Portril - Summer Tanager - [POR-trihl]  
> Feng- Maeslin (Maes) - Numbat - [MAZE-lynn]  
> David- Ezriana (Ez) - Magnificent Frigatebird - [ehz-ree-AHN-ah]  
> Quentin - Nynta (Nyn) - Earwig - [NIHN-tuh]
> 
> I forgot to throw David and Ez a cameo in the actual chapter but I may as well list his form anyway haha. Short chapter because I sort of ran out of steam about halfway through, but I love Dwight a lot and he needs more love so here's his little slice of worldbuilding. Next chap will be up probably quite a bit quicker as I... actually know what's going to happen in it. ^^'  
> (I /really/ wish that David had a male daemon so Ez could have the flashy throat pouch that male frigatebirds have, but there's only one char in this AU with a same-sex daemon and it's not a survivor).


End file.
